Mineral Oil Submerged Computer

[jedediah]

Thanks for the info Akelly! I was reading through the whole thread trying to see what could clean the oil off in case a part ever needed to go back. And I know some asked about power buttons. I found this site with the biggest collection to pick from. http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l1/g44/DIYMod_Parts.html I'm going to just order a $5 one. I need nothing fancy.

[GuyFawkes]

Hi Folks, just done this (anyone based in the UK read on for availability of oil etc) and have documented it in my blog, not a plug, but way too much to post here. But will post last entry below.

Blog is hosted at the end of a home cable connection, so limited bandwidth. It's at http://surfbaud.dyndns.org/sites/blog/ in the category "Liquid cooled"

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I've yet to find something in my life that came out *exactly* as I predicted or hoped, there is always some aspect you didn't quite get or foresee.

This project has been no different.

1/ All hardware has a sort of buffer zone in between what it will work at and what it is able to do, the newer the hardware the bigger the buffer zone.

Everyone is going to be tempted to start immersion oil cooling with old hardware, don't do it, cut straight to new hardware, the (good) reasons are manifold, but most of all immersing things in oil is not going to revitalise a hammered old component and give it a buffer zone like new replacement.

2/ nobody pays much serious attention to the paths of airflow through air cooled cases, and the same is true of oil cooled, stuff is just plonked in a tank where it will fit, this is wrong, flow is vitally important, especially for oil cooled. Doesn't matter is flow is forced by pump or natual by thermosiphon, you *must* have good flow and circulation.

3/ Ultimately all these oil cooled designs are wrong, you need to lay the mobo flat at the bottom of the tank, put the heat sources at the bottom of the tank, and run extension cables for all you I/O and data up to the lid, all these cables will harden with exposure to oil.

4/ if one time is the actual build process, I'd guess most people will have a limit of three times with going into oil to pull / swap components before they give up on the idea, bear this in mind, especially in conjunction with point #1

<strong>Safety warning - an item, such as a PSU, pulled out of oil and allowed to drain, MUST NOT be plugged in again unless immersed, the thin layer of oil covering everything is an excellent insulator of heat from airflow too, I suspect a PSU packs enough punch to let some magic smoke out and even potentially exceed the flash point of the oil.</strong>

5/ I went into this thinking cooling and silencing, I'm coming out of realising that the true domain of the oil immersed computer is lack of maintenance and lack of contamination, if you want something that is built and never touched again for a few years, and / or something that stays utterly free from all airborne contamination, then this is the answer, which is *exactly* what it is used for in industry.

6/ The cooling aspect works, no doubt about that, but by not containing the coolant you pay a price in convenience. It looks fairly cool to if that rocks your boat.

7/ Weight, my fairly minimalist oil cooled computer weighs in at near enough 70 lbs.

8/ Standby issues... unless you pull the plug at the wall the PCI bus is powered up, so even the standby PC is drawing power from the standby PSU, and I'm becoming more convinced that the oil immersed computer needs to lose the ATX PSU entirely and go for a solid state industrial grade DC-DC ATX PSU sited outside the oil, with extension power cables running into the oil.

9/ Qualitat, the more I look at this the more I realise that I did it utterly wrong, the oil immersed computer should be done with very very high quality components, such as item #8 above, in fact many moons ago I was involved in designing a computer system for yachts, here oil cooled would come into it's own, allied with industrial grade hardware, build it, seal it, fit it, forget it.

My own particular usage and one suggested by a mate as a way of cooling and quietening noisy old Compaq servers, nope, can't say it is ideal. For the home user I'd say limit yourself to dropping a (stripped) laptop in an oil bath and using it as a headless server, it will perform excellently and you'll never be wanting to do hardware mods etc.

10/ I've got this nagging feeling in the back of my head that I get when ideas start to coalesce, so I can't put it into words yet, but having done this (extremely worthwhile and not regretted for an instant) experiment I am coming to the conclusion that solutions such as this should be tools in a toolbox, which are used in conjunction with other tools, not a one-tool-fits-everything approach, which is what we have today in computers, you either go bog standard air cooled or you go bog standard water block cooled or you go bog standard phase change cooled, there is no elegant pick and mix of appropriate technologies for appropriate applications, and there are many different applications inside the modern PC.

Summary.

There is a danger that this will come across giving the user the idea that immersed in oil cooling is not an experiment they should undertake, and that it entirely contrary to the opinion I wish to give. It is a very cheap experiment, and if you have read these articles properly you won't make any of the mistakes I made and you won't kill any hardware.

What you will do is learn a lot, about oil and about computers, and at a cost of maybe 50 quid's worth of oil all I can say is the knowledge you gained comes cheap at the price. Reading this WILL NOT give you this knowledge, just a peek / insight into it.

To clean Paraffin based mineral oil off components, use isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, or simply a bowl full of soapy warm water, then thoroughly rinse with running warm water, then dry immediately in the air stream from a fan heater or similar warm air current... sounds mad, having run a computer in oil it won't.... coffee with sugar is an electrolyte, spill it on a powered up computer and zap, warm soapy water on unplugged components does no damage, provided you rinse well and dry THOROUGHLY before reassembly and powering up again.

This experiment was not a bust, it yielded a ton of useful data, and that doesn't mean you shouldn't repeat it, you should, it will (apart from your own learning) simply add to the knowledge base.

I've built and run MkI and MkII, no point moving on to MkIII because of the accumulated data that needs to be thought out first, MkIII is not going to be a simple progression from MkII, we need to learn from what we have learned.

In the next article I'm going to discuss the pros and cons of the various aspects and methods of cooling. In this way we will arrive at a basic design spec for MkIII.

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cheers

[Super-User]

what do you think of this? Silicone Dot5 Brake Fluid

I think that due to the fact that it is silicone based it will not have a detrimental effect on the
cheaper mobo's caps and should be as corrosive as regular brake fluid as it won't eat paint. Plus it has the viscosity of brake fluid which is pretty flowy. it is non-flamable, non-conductive, boils at 180C which is hotter then any puter in its right mind should be getting.
I just thinking that if I was to build a custom oil cooled pc that this may be the stuff to do it with other then that fact that it's bluebut then again what color is the ocean?

[PCC-Heather]

Hm. I notice it says odorless, but I wonder if it gives off any biproducts as it circulates...I am not sure I'd be comfortable with it unless it was sealed or something.

That's just me, and I'm kind of paranoid because I spent years doing technical support in chemical plants...(if it looks like water, folks, it's not).

[akelly999]

I would avoid using brake fluid as it was designed for things other than cooling. It also has additives that may affect the circuit board material itself. Any kind of transformer cooling fluid would work but mineral oil is cheapest. I suspect that liquid paraffin (used in oil lamps and candles) should work as well and be readily available to anyone. I am still looking at using regular paraffin (white wax that melts at low temp and is nearly a perfect insulator) in a phase change setup. Should work well without the need for a cooling radiator. Kind of like a electronic lava lamp...

[HKLN]

Merry Christmas to all. Here is my water oil computer (place bottles of water in tank)
http://hklnblog.blogspot.com/2007/12...-computer.html

I am going to use 3DMark03 to perform the load test because 3DMark06 is too large to download.

I am concerned about the safty of mineral oil (e.g. flammability) after reading this article.
"Vegetable oil based dielectric coolant - Patent 6184459"

[thegreatabbazaba]

hello, i am looking at buying mineral oil online from a vet. would the viscosity be worse than if i went to walmart and bought the mineral oil for people. i ask because i would save a lot of money buy buying from the vet.
here is the link to the vet:
http://www.jeffersequine.com
from there search for mineral oil and pick the one that says "Vet Mineral Oil"

[Ksl177]

what do you think of this? Silicone Dot5 Brake Fluid

I think that due to the fact that it is silicone based it will not have a detrimental effect on the
cheaper mobo's caps and should be as corrosive as regular brake fluid as it won't eat paint. Plus it has the viscosity of brake fluid which is pretty flowy. it is non-flamable, non-conductive, boils at 180C which is hotter then any puter in its right mind should be getting.
I just thinking that if I was to build a custom oil cooled pc that this may be the stuff to do it with other then that fact that it's blue but then again what color is the ocean?

One of the worst fluids you could pick. You'd have to totally seal the system as it's extremely hygromatic (it literally sucks water vapor from the air).

Also I'm not sure why folks are so worried about the caps. Hint: they're filled with dieletrics, hence when they "pop" they go bad. As long as the dielectric you're using for the fluid has about the same properties as the fluid in the caps the absolute worst that will happen is you'll sub one dielectric for the other.

[EFDisaster]

TRAGEDY!!!
no, not really

Mine was running pretty hot (old P4, so not unexpected) but I did purchase a Zalman Reserator 2 (for myself, for the holidays), and I fished out a molex connector for it. Unfortunately, when I tried to power on the system, I got nothing... seems my power supply is shorted or something, possibly I jostled something when fishing out the power lead... now when I hit the power switch, the light (that used to be popping out of the back of the power supply) just blinks and the machine won't post.

Not really looking forward to pulling the thing out of the oil to work on it. I assume that's gonna be pretty messy.

[thegreatabbazaba]

if is true about the stickers falling off from the mineral oil, than would that void all warranties?